The $463 billion game of "Gotcha"

It's no secret that the GOP majority is trying to sabotage the Democratic majority when a new session of Congress begins next year-- some are even boasting about it.

Already, the Republican leadership has moved to saddle the new Democratic majority with responsibility for resolving $463 billion in spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. And the departing chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Bill Thomas (R., Calif.), has been demanding that the Democrat-crafted 2008 budget absorb most of the $13 billion in costs incurred from a decision now to protect physician reimbursements under Medicare, the federal health-care program for the elderly and disabled.

But I'm sure you remember the wave of right-wing outrage about the trashing" of the White House by Clinton's outgoing staff. That would be because it received a whole lot of press, in spite of the fact that it wasn't true. As Kevin Drum writes of the above WSJ story:

But the stories! There were hundreds of them, all agog over the news that a few staffers had removed the W keys from their keyboards. So immature! So childish!

But Republican legislators punting on half a trillion dollars worth of spending bills because they're "tired" and they want to gum up the works for the incoming Democrats? It's barely worth a yawn. Some priorities, eh?